


Exile in America

by vtn



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Post Avengers (2012)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-04
Updated: 2013-06-04
Packaged: 2017-12-13 23:50:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/830267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vtn/pseuds/vtn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Loki is sent to live among humans on Midgard as punishment for his deeds, Darcy decides she might as well get to know him a little better, despite Clint's misgivings. In the process, she learns some surprising things about Loki's true nature, as well as her own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Exile in America

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tooth_and_claw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tooth_and_claw/gifts).



> Takes place post- _Avengers_ and ignores _Thor: The Dark World_ spoilers.
> 
> For [tooth_and_claw](http://archiveofourown.org/users/tooth_and_claw) for the Not Primetime 2013 exchange. I had a great time writing it, and I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Thank you to Lea for an extremely helpful beta read.

Loki left Asgard in a brilliant flare of glory and now he returns there chained and in disgrace. He cannot even meet his father’s gaze, cannot bear to see scorn and disappointment where he expected awe, expected Odin All-Father himself to avert his eyes from the way Loki would have burned, brighter than the heart of a fire, brighter than the sun. No longer, now.

“You have made a mockery of Asgard, my son,” (still _my son_ ) “and you must learn humility. If you truly want men to bow before you, first you must know what it is to bow your own head. You must know that there are powers greater even than you and wisdom that you do not yet possess. It is the lesson your brother learned and he may be” (he _may_ be) “a great king someday for it.”

Loki cannot help but glance to Thor, then. He still does not understand why Thor looks wounded. Loki, magician that he is, familiar with the arts of deceit, can see the true shapes of things - and his brother’s eyes do not lie.

“Where is your pride, fool?” he spits in Thor’s direction. “You have triumphed over me at last; are you not pleased?”

“How could I be proud?” says Thor, his words bitter. “How could I be proud to see the brother I love so shamed? Father, please grant me leave to go.”

“To call me brother still, you mock me,” Loki says.

“Thor,” Odin speaks up above them, “You will stay with me now.” He motions to the side of the throne, and Thor goes and kneels there, his knees dirty on the sparkling stone of the floor. What a disgusting spectacle, for a prince to be made to kneel in such a way. “Your brother was here to witness your own judgment. You must take courage and stay to see his.”

He turns to Loki, then, and now Loki cannot escape his gaze. “We have been fortunate that through your foolhardy actions you have opened a gateway to Midgard again. Now you will return there, like I sent your brother before you, as a mortal man.” Loki cannot hide his sudden gasp. It is as though he has been struck in the back of the head.

“How dare you?” he says, even as Odin’s hand comes down upon him and strips him of his armor. “How dare you make me walk among those vermin? Humans are the lowliest creatures. They crawl upon their dying planet like worms, stupid and blind and weak. We can crush them under our heels, and you would make me one of them?”

Odin gives Loki leave to stand, but Loki cannot. He feels as though a part of him has been torn away, a part like a vital organ or a limb.

“We all must crawl before we learn to walk,” says Odin. “Thor, look upon your brother one last time before he makes this journey.”

Loki stares at nothing. Thor rushes to him and embraces him.

“Brother, take care,” Thor says, and Loki hears the catch in his voice, as though he might shed tears. “Heimdall will keep watch over you for me, I swear it.”

Loki pushes him aside. “I don’t need your pity.”

“Come, then,” says Odin, extending his arm. Loki finally stands, and follows his father.

\---

Darcy is on her second cup of shitty, watered-down coffee when she sees this guy sitting at one of the tables up against the wall. He is definitely not the typical New Mexico kind of dude. He looks weirdly formal despite being obviously homeless and crazy; his hair is slicked back or something and he has this stupid shirt-sweater combo that makes him look like a zombified version of one of those Financial District guys.

He also looks kind of familiar, especially when he sees that she’s looking at him and he gives her the unmistakable creeper eye. She turns around so her back is to him. If Darcy’s going to get the eye from homeless creepers, at least it should be the homeless creepers she knows and loves.

She’s been living in this anarchist co-op house lately, place called the Rookery, because it’s the only remotely cool place in a probably-a-hundred-mile radius of Puente Antiguo, and plus it’s cheaper than buying a house, even though she could probably afford it on the NSF grant they’re working off these days. But what would be the point? She’d rather be hanging out in the backyard with a bunch of peyote-tripping freaks than mowing a Miracle-Gro’d lawn to HOA regulation height any day.

And she’d rather be drinking drip coffee in the kitchen than this cup of bilge in this diner that is a literal antique any day, but the drip coffee maker is broken, and Flint said he would fix it but he’s been having this fight with Rosie that’s keeping him pretty busy, and so probably Darcy should just fix it herself, but meh. Lazy.

“Do you know that guy?” asks the waitress, whose name is apparently ‘Betty’ according to her nametag. “Top you off?” she says quickly, aiming the coffee pot in the direction of Darcy’s mug.

“Spare me,” Darcy says back, not unkindly. “I feel like I know him from somewhere, but you know, we run into all kinds of weirdos at work.”

“Oh, do you work down at the hospital?” Betty pours coffee for the man next to Darcy.

“No, I work at the fed compound.” Darcy jerks her thumb in the vague direction of the office. “I’m an astrophysicist.” It’s still weird to say. In the span of just a year, she went from a political science major who probably wanted to work for a member of Congress or something but who really knows to a college dropout working on stuff that, if it wasn’t classified anyway, she hardly even has the vocabulary to explain. “Anyway, he was freaking me out. Maybe keep an eye on that guy.”

“Oh, don’t worry, hon, he’s here all the time and I’ve never seen him harm a fly,” says Betty blithely, sweeping up used plates and silverware into her arms. “Doesn’t talk much, just writes and reads the paper. I just asked if you knew him because he seems like he needs a friend in this world.”

“He have a name?” Darcy asks. She takes another glance - she swears she knows that guy. Who _is_ he?

“Yeah, something Scandinavian,” Betty tells her. And that’s when she figures it out.

It’s _that_ guy. It’s the other freaky, weirdly pretty, Viking alien dude; it’s Jane’s boyfriend’s little brother. What is he doing here is he just keeping his creepy little alien eyes on them?

“Thanks,” says Darcy, and she tips Betty the entire price of the two shitty coffees. (Again, sweet paycheck from the NSF has its perks.)

Darcy walks across the diner and sits down at the table with Loki, son of Odin. “Hi, I’m Darcy Lewis. You probably don’t remember me.” Loki’s face looks blank and ashen. “Um, I’m the chick who tazed your brother?”

“You know my brother?” Loki says, his voice low. His voice is as slick and oily as his hairdo, but he sounds pretty despondent, like maybe he could stand to have another cup of coffee.

“Yeah, mostly by being the awkward third wheel when he hangs around with my boss,” she admits. It occurs to Darcy that she is sitting across a table at a diner talking to the guy who tried to blow up Puente Antiguo with a giant robot. But somehow she’s not afraid, and besides, what the hell, Puente Antiguo is the kind of place that can use a kick in the ass once in a while. Darcy kicks her high tops up on the table. Loki looks at them like they’re flea-infested. “So what’s a nice Norse god like you doing in a place like this?”

He keeps staring at her until she puts her shoes on the floor.

“I am in exile,” he says, so silently you could miss it by breathing too loud.

“Then that’s something we’ve got in common.”

\---

Darcy lets Loki use the shower and steal some old clothes while she tries to figure out what to do. Again, homeless people hanging around the house hardly even pings on people’s radar, and when Rainbow passes by Darcy in the hall all she does is jerk her thumb back in the direction of the shower and give a couple of suggestive eyebrow waggles and a wolf whistle.

“Oh come on, dude, I’m not fucking him,” Darcy says. Rainbow looks stunned.

“Uh, why not?”

Because he could murder me with his left pinky? Because he’s a homeless pervert who’s also revered as a trickster deity, including by at least one person who has lived in this very house? Because doing it with Jane’s boyfriend’s brother feels weirdly incestuous, even if he is adopted?

“Uh, have you _seen_ his fucking hairdo?” Darcy mimes vomiting.

Rainbow shrugs and walks toward the kitchen, probably to try figure out more ways to deal with the five pounds of turnips from the CSA. “Have it your way.”

Darcy will have to tell the SHIELD guys, she figures. Loki is... _probably_ wanted by the CIA for being a weapon of mass destruction or something, which makes her the girl who is harboring a weapon of mass destruction and she slept and/or doodled her way through most of the CIA briefings and debriefings and rebriefings but she’s still pretty sure that would be bad news.

Loki comes out of the bathroom in a towel. He looks like he weighs maybe not quite what Darcy does, and he’s a foot taller than she is. Jesus H. Christ.

“Show me again,” he says, “How do you stop the water from flowing? I turned the tap but it flows still.”

\---

Darcy’s will is about as strong as a busted hair elastic, which is to say not particularly, and she ends up telling Loki that she’s going to let Nick Fury’s people know he’s bumming around New Mexico looking like he scavenged his clothes from the trash, because he _is_ the guy who killed Phil stick-up-the-ass Coulson and possessed Clint the Hawk or something and she’s not _stupid_ , he knows that right? She’s a little nervous he’s just going to kill her and hide the evidence but something about him isn’t exactly screaming ‘murder time’ right now. She can’t put her finger on it.

Loki cries out wordlessly and punches the couch, which is not the reaction she expected.

“Don’t tell them,” he says when he calms down a little, his eyes still looking a little crazy. “They fear me, don’t tell them. They still think I am a god.”

“Um, not to be a dick about it, but I think they all know you’re actually an alien, so that part’s covered, and yeah, the fear thing is why I’m telling them.”

“Did I not tell you, stupid girl?” He reaches out to grab her chin or something but Darcy makes a face and pulls away. “I am in exile. I have no power. I have nothing to make them fear me, just this filthy, rotten, emaciated human body. But I will not depend upon the mercy of others. I will not beg. I will not go back to my father or brother and plead with them to take me home, where I will be nothing but a prisoner in their palace. I will survive on my own,” he makes that sad puppy dog face of his, “or I will die. But it will be my choice.”

“That is _righteous_ ,” says Rainbow, wandering back out of the kitchen. “Fight the power. Hey Darcy, I think I found a recipe to make alcohol out of the turnips.”

“Being too stubborn to ask for help is not fighting the power,” says Darcy, “and I’m not drinking rotten turnip juice because even I draw the line somewhere.”

\---

Darcy leaves Loki sleeping on the couch and goes to work; no one at the compound ever seems to care when she shows up late. For some reason she refuses to tell Jane that Loki is hanging out in her living room, probably because she suspects Jane would go weird on her and also because she can already imagine Jane’s disappointment at knowing the brothers weren’t coming as a package deal this time. Jane asks her what’s up and why she wants to talk to Clint Barton so badly, but she keeps up a facade of noncommittal evasiveness that makes Jane giggle and elbow her in the side.

Darcy almost protests, but in the end she thinks, let Jane figure she just has a thing for Clint rather than get Jane involved in the whole Asgard mess again.

“Darcy,” says Clint, like she’s not even worth his time. They’re in his office, or his ‘nest’ as everyone calls it. Because it is hilarious. She narrows her eyes and tries to pin him with her stare. “What’s up?”

“I met someone in the café today that I think you should probably know about.” Suddenly he’s all ears, looking up at her expectantly as a hungry dog at the dinner table. “Uh, I guess I’ll just cut to the chase. It’s Loki. He’s back. But--” she adds quickly, because she sees him looking like he’s about to lunge at her, “I guess he’s powered down. He’s exiled from his home, he looks like the saddest thing you’ve ever seen.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“Well of course I do, he’s in my living room.” Darcy shrugs. She understands why Clint’s afraid but she’s always been good at relying on her senses to tell her when it’s actually time to be scared and when it’s time to stand down. And somehow the best way to make sense of all these aliens and superheroes and everything that would otherwise be shaking her world is to just listen to her instincts.

“Darcy.” His gaze pierces her. Not unlike an arrow. “This is the god of chaos we’re talking about. I mean--I’ve felt him. He’s been inside me.” Clint gestures at himself.

“Um, TMI?” Darcy says, with a cock of her head. Clint makes a face.

“You know what I mean. He’s been in my mind.” He shifts uncomfortably. “Go home,” he says, “Keep an eye on him.”

“Hey, I’m an astrophysicist, not a babysitter.” Darcy pouts in a way that she hopes is convincing. Part of the whole reason she took the internship was to avoid spending another year with her summer job being looking after the neighbor kids for chump change.

“That’s an order, Lewis,” says Clint, a little more strongly now. “I do outrank you, you know.”

“Yes, sir,” she says, snapping off a salute at him.

“One day I’m going to teach you the difference between a military salute and a Heil Hitler,” he mutters, but Darcy tries to see if she can set him on fire with her eyeballs and he backs down. If they ever start handing out superpowers...

\---

Darcy does go home. Loki is still on the couch, but now he’s reading a gigantic book that according to the cover is _The History of Sexuality, vol. ii_ by Michel Foucault.

“Did you already finish Volume One?” she asks him.

“Volume one is not here,” he says with a slight shrug. He puts the book down gently. “Your Michel Foucault sees things quite differently from Asgardian thinkers. It is fascinating.”

“Is it? I honestly wouldn’t know. I tend to read mostly comics and graphic novels. The illustrations make the story easier to follow.” Loki nods. Darcy isn’t sure why he’s still interested; most people would have checked out of the conversation at this point.

“I have no trouble following this work,” he says, though. “I am surprised by your people’s ability to view themselves as from afar. I thought such things were reserved for those you call your gods.”

“Well, maybe it is, since you’re the only one of us who’s read Michel Foucault,” she says.

“I am told we are gods no more,” Loki replies wryly. “Your superiors in strength and longevity to be certain, and in magic, which your people lack completely--”

“Hey,” says Darcy. “No we don’t. We just call it science.” It’s hard for her to argue with the rest of it.

“--but no longer your gods. Now you call us simply aliens, a word that means foreigners. Funny how things change.”

“I haven’t actually polled anyone who worships the Norse gods. Maybe they still do,” she says. “Or maybe they have a different explanation for it. What do I know?” It doesn’t seem like something she could just ask someone about, even though Miles does and he lives here. _Hey, now that I’ve met some of your gods, are you going to stop praying to them? Huh? Are ya?_ No, not happening.

“And you?” he asks, looking at her sharply. She starts. There’s something intense in his gaze, like he’s really seeing her for the first time. “What am I to you?”

“My boss’s boyfriend’s brother.” She mentally fills in the rest of the Spaceballs quote: _And what does that make us? Absolutely nothing!_ Which it kind of does, so she feels a little bad, and adds, “Well, I mean, and now you’re sort of my--” She won’t say _friend_ , not yet. “Now I know you, but I don’t know anything about you. I mean, I don’t even know if Thor’s your only sibling.”

“He is.” And then Loki’s face blanches. “That I am aware of.” Suddenly, Darcy has the exact same creeping feeling that she is pretty sure Loki just experienced. Because it’s been more than eight years since her dad went to prison, and that’s eight years of not knowing whether he could have fallen in love, however improbably, started another family...

“Uh, well, uh,” she tries feebly, “And I don’t even know if Loki is your first name or your last name.”

Now his voice is cold as ice. “It is my first name,” he says.

Well, shit. Now she’s gone and offended him. “Well, now I know two things about you,” she says, trying to change the subject as quickly as possible. “Do you wanna get takeout and watch TV?”

“It depends,” he says, “On the meaning of your word takeout. If it is a venereal disease, for instance, I would have to decline.”

“It’s food. You’re gross.” She frowns.

“Ah, yes, in that case, perhaps it might be of some interest.”

\---

Darcy couldn’t get good reception on the TV, so she and Loki are playing Spit while they eat their McDonalds in the living room when there’s a knock on the door. Darcy goes to get it and it’s Clint.

“I didn’t know SHIELD did house calls,” she says. “...I didn’t know you had my address.”

“Job like mine, you get access to certain information. What are you doing here?” He’s talking to Loki now.

“Dying slowly,” Loki says back, his voice smooth and practiced. Nothing like when he talks to Darcy, and that sets her distinctly on guard. “I could ask the same of you. Why do they keep you in New Mexico, anyway? Are they so afraid of me?”

“Clint, I--”

“Thank you, Darcy,” Clint says, his voice icy. He goes up to the couch. “Actually, thank you for this too.” He tazes Loki, cuffs him, and drags him out the door before Darcy can protest.

Darcy sleeps very poorly that night. Her dreams are fitful, and she is cold.

\---

Morning. Too early. But birds are singing, there is a box of Kix in the kitchen cabinet, and Darcy goes outside for a _long_ walk underneath a sky so blue it’s startling. She’s up on top of a mountain trying to meditate -- but her brain is always moving too fast for her to really get into it -- when her phone rings.

“Hello, you have reached Norm’s Porn Emporium,” she says cheerily, “How may we service you?”

“Darcy, it’s Clint.”

“How did you get this n--never mind. What’s going on?”

“I’m giving you your Asgardian housepet back,” he says. Darcy smiles, she’s not really sure why. “Fury says there’s no point in keeping him locked up when he’s neutralized like this. I guess they did their scans and stuff and confirmed he’s telling the truth.”

Oh shit. When it’s spelled out like that, “telling the truth”, when you’re talking about a guy whose whole deal is that he lies...

“It’s not the way we do things,” he says. “Not anymore.” Darcy thinks back to the notebooks they confiscated, to the relic itself that Loki tried to control. “If you keep people out in the open, if you watch them, they won’t try to hurt you. They don’t have a reason to. And we can’t classify everything anymore. The cat’s out of the bag.”

“But don’t believe him,” Darcy says. “His whole deal is that he lies.”

“That’s how I feel too.” Clint’s voice is low. Darcy blinks into the bright sunlight, watches the birds circle. “I’ll help you keep an eye on him. If he does anything crazy, you call me.”

Loki looks even more depressive than before, and maybe a little paranoid, when Clint brings him back to the Rookery. She gives him a sweater to wear, because he’s also shivering. It’s kind of pathetic-cute, like when baby chicks first hatch and attempt clumsily to walk around, all drenched and tired.

“Do you have a fever or something?” she asks him. She puts her hand on his forehead, even though he flinches. He’s not warm at all, he’s cool. And his skin looks a little greenish, like he’s sick.

“What are you doing?” Clint’s like, incredulous.

“I’m not going to turn into whatever he is just because I touched him,” she taunts him, poking Loki with her finger.

“Stop that,” Loki warns, grabbing her wrist. Even his grip is limp.

“Are you dying or something?” she asks him.

“Is that just something you ask people?” Clint says. His face seems to have frozen into a permanent expression of not believing Darcy is a real thing that exists. And maybe like she’s still not worth his time.

“Slowly, yes,” Loki murmurs, “Dying, just like you.”

\---

Clint leaves her there with Loki again, and she’s glad he does, feeling even a little resentful of him, and maybe it shows when she goes to make eggs and cracks them especially aggressively over the skillet. Like, who does he think he is?

But soon she settles down, and enjoys her day off. Loki doesn’t do anything suspicious for the next few hours other than be confused by Velcro and refuse to drink their orange juice, which is probably just common sense anyway since she doesn’t actually remember the last time they bought OJ.

And then she looks over her shoulder while she’s waiting for a Youtube video to load and Loki’s gone.

She calls Clint and he picks up before the first ring like he’s been waiting for this all day. He probably has. Darcy groans and rolls her eyes after she hangs up, and she goes outside and heads toward downtown.

\---

Darcy has no luck downtown, though she tries the café and the bar and the movie theater, and she heads home, her head aching, to find Clint is already there, with Loki blearily coming to on the couch.

“Did you taze him again?” she asks Clint, amused that the Darcy Lewis Method for dealing with unstable situations seems to be gaining traction.

Except: “Tranquilizer,” Clint responds. She wants to punch him, but she knows he’d pull rank and yell at someone in SHIELD about her. Also, she reminds herself, Loki did a lot worse to Clint.

Loki’s fully awake now, and he looks about the same level of color and cheerfulness as a corpse.

“Why do you bring me here?” he asks them. “What is your purpose?”

“Why does it have to have a purpose? Why did you want to leave anyway?” Darcy asks him.

“Darcy...” Clint doesn’t seem to finish his thought.

“What did I do wrong?” she finally asks, looking straight at Loki.

“Nothing but keep me prisoner,” he says, haughty as he always is when Clint’s around. He must enjoy the way Clint fears him.

“I’m not keeping you prisoner,” Darcy says, “I’m just giving you a home. I didn’t call Clint because I wanted him to keep you quarantined.” She does her best to stare daggers at him. “Whatever _Clint himself_ might have wanted, that wasn’t my point. I just wanted you to know you can stay here.”

“Home,” Loki says with a scoff. “What does it even mean to have a home? Where is _your_ home? Are you at home here, Darcy Lewis, when you look on these people that you live with as strangers?”

Darcy stalls then, because he’s got a point. She still finds herself thinking about her mom’s house in the Valley as home more often than not, but when she’s there she never really feels at home, she mostly just feels like it’s somewhere she left her childhood behind. And here, well, here in New Mexico she’s just bored out of her mind most of the time. She didn’t move into the Rookery because it feels like home, she moved here because it’s bored. But still... 

“Don’t overthink it,” says Clint. “Home’s just wherever you lay your head down for the night.” 

“Right, yeah,” Darcy picks up the slack in the conversation. “And you were sleeping on the street.” 

“Or wherever I could find shelter,” Loki says as though it’s a correction. 

“Which is basically the exact definition of the word homeless,” Darcy says. 

“Fool,” says Loki, “I have been cast from my realm. I am homeless no matter where I sleep.” 

“Either that,” says Clint, his voice even, “Or you could just get used to being here.” 

Loki laughs sharply. “How can I when you see me as your prisoner? In my home I am a prince.” 

“Well that’s a shitty definition of--” Darcy starts, but Clint cuts her off. 

“You are a prisoner,” he snaps, “That’s exactly what you need to get used to. And I’ll watch you, I’ll know where to find you, and you can choose whether you want me to find you in a cell, or right here.” 

“Clint!” Darcy shouts. “Shut up! Just--shut up.” She isn’t sure why this is making her so mad, but she wants him so stop. “Just chill out a little, okay?” 

Clint stares at her. “You don’t know what it was like.” 

Darcy sighs, and stops shouting. “No, I guess I don’t. Look, Clint, do what you want, but my house isn’t a prison. And I’m not a prison guard.” 

“Well, I guess I am, then,” Clint says, and shrugs. He gets up and shuts the front door. 

\--- 

Darcy decides they should all go bowling, to cheer Loki up and give him something to do, because really this isn’t a prison -- that’s what she tells them, anyway. She has an ulterior motive, though - she wants to see what happens when Clint gets drunk, and there are two ways to get publicly drunk in Puente Antiguo. One is in the one shitty little dive bar. The other is between throwing ten-pound balls at things. Darcy knows which she prefers. 

“Your Midgard drink is foul,” is Loki’s comment, and he becomes intensely focused on bowling, which he turns out to be quite good at. 

Darcy is ignoring the fact that he may get Puente Antiguo’s all time high score and instead focusing on trying to detect signs of drunkenness in Clint. Other than the fact that his eyes keep darting back over to Loki, she hasn’t seen any yet. 

“Are you sure you’re human?” she asks him, the room swinging wildly as she turns to stare him down. 

“Jesus, yes. I wish everyone would quit asking me that.” 

“It was facetious,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Of all the things to have a complex about.” 

“Who says I have a complex?” 

Darcy swigs her third PBR (screw Loki, that fucking hipster beer snob, who cares what he thinks). “You have all kinds of complexes. There’s your complex about everyone thinking only superpowered superheroes are cool, and of course Tony counts because he’s like, what is that called, post-human? Cyberpunk? Where you have machine parts?” 

“A _cyborg_?” Clint looks skeptical. 

“Transhumanist!” One of Darcy’s former housemates at the Rookery was always ranting about how things would be different in the future once computers could interface directly with our neurons. “And your thing where you’re afraid that a little teeny bit of Loki is still possessing you, and your feelings for your mother.” 

Clint’s whole face scrunches up. “What?” 

“And your inability to take a joke. My turn.” Darcy haphazardly slides off her stool. She throws a gutterball and then manages to knock over one of the side pins on her second roll. “Is that your judging face?” she accuses Loki, waggling her finger. 

When she returns to the bar, Clint is frowning. “Well,” he says to her, drawling a little, “I guess you just got everybody figured out, don’t you.” 

“Not him,” Darcy replies with all honesty, glancing briefly back at Loki. “I’m pretty good with people, but not him.” 

Clint excuses himself and rolls the ball straight down the center of the lane, only leaving one pin. His second ball misses, and he shrugs, going back to continue the conversation. 

“Well, let me see if I can get you,” Clint says, and it registers somewhere in Darcy’s mind that perhaps now he is actually legitimately intoxicated. “You’re good at figuring people out, you think that makes you good with people, but yet you can’t get any of them to take you seriously. You move into a house with people walking in and out all day to try and get some social interaction, but do any of them come with you for drunken bowling? Nah. Didn’t think so. You’re so desperate you’ll befriend a man so evil he almost tried to use me to murder my best friend, just to have someone to talk to.” 

Darcy looks down into her drink. It looks like a deep well. 

“Well, also ‘cause I’m nice,” she says quietly. 

“You don’t trust him though, do you?” 

“I don’t really care about trusting people,” Darcy says. She kicks her legs, feeling high off the ground. 

“You’re really young, aren’t you?” Clint’s voice is gentle now. Darcy is about to protest that her age shouldn’t matter, but then Loki is behind them, looking gaunt. 

“I believe I am your victor,” he says wryly. He passes them the scorecard. His score is 170, Clint’s is 120, and Darcy’s is 58. He folds up the little card and puts it in his pocket. “Let us retire.” 

“I’m coming with you,” Clint says, standing. He puts his finger in the middle of Loki’s chest. “You’re not getting out of my sight again.” 

Darcy shrugs, “If you like sleeping on the floor.” 

“I don’t really sleep much at all, to be honest.” 

“Sleep is for the weak,” Darcy mumbles. Loki, apparently having no sense of sarcasm, gives a staunch nod. 

\--- 

The funny thing is Clint is the first one to fall asleep when they get back to the Rookery, flopped across one of the chairs in the living room with his head against the wall. They stopped by the awesome little hole-in-the-wall takeout place that stays open well past midnight on the way back from the bowling alley, and Darcy and Loki of them are snacking on pupusas and coffee well into the wee hours of the night. 

“Darcy Lewis,” Loki asks her, as the stars gaze down into the little room, “Tell me. What is it to be human?” 

“Uh, you’re a _Homo sapien_? That’s basically about it.” She licks crumbs off her lower lip, watches the way his hair falls over his eyes. “I dunno. I was never an anthropologist. I guess being human has something to do with social instincts. Humans want to be near other humans.” She pauses, trying to think back to the textbooks she read back in high school. “I guess we also exclude other humans, though. Human societies need outcasts in order to function.” 

“No.” Loki shakes his head. “How does it _feel_ to be human? To have human blood in your veins, human stories burned in your memory?” He touches her face. She doesn’t flinch. His eyes bore into her. “Clothed in human flesh?” 

“I--” The spell between them breaks. She takes a big bite of her last pupusa. “Don’t you know what it’s like?” she asks him, her mouth full. “Didn’t your Norse dad make you into a human?” 

Loki throws his head back and laughs. “He stripped me of the Asgardian powers he gave me. But he forgets who I am. He forgets what I am. He tries to deny it.” He grips her wrist. Darcy is frightened now. Why isn’t Clint waking up? And now Loki looks as scared and confused as Darcy feels. She swallows, the corn dough feeling rough and lumpy in her throat. “And yet, I still take this appearance, even when the glamour on me is broken. I do not understand it. It is as though there is a part of me that is...what? What is this?” Her arm feels cold as ice. No. Her arm _is_ ice, and so is his, his body starting to change into something different. She screams and struggles free of him, shaking her hand until her skin thaws. 

“What do you want with me?” she shouts. “I’m nothing, no one would even care if something happened to me!” 

Loki, half-transformed, shouts wordlessly and turns his back on her. 

Now Clint is awake, and he jumps on Loki, puts him in a headlock. 

“Kill me,” Loki says, grinning. 

“I’m not going to kill you. That isn’t how we operate.” He tightens his grip on Loki. “I kill you, who knows what’d happen. No, you’re coming back with me.” 

Loki blows air out of his nostrils, then with a roll of his shoulders he transforms fully. Now it’s the Ice Giant that has Clint in his grip, dragging him out the door and into the yard. Darcy follows. 

The Milky Way whirls above them, big and bright and looming the way it only is out here in the wilds, in the desert, and she stares Loki down as Clint struggles in his grip. Even in those alien eyes she can find that brief spark. It’s reluctance. And she actually laughs because she thinks she understands it now. 

“Guess what?” she shouts. Somehow the Rookery still sleeps, undisturbed, calm, the eye of the storm, as though nothing is happening. Darcy has a sudden rush of hope that it will always stay that way. For the first time, at the thought of it being in the path of Loki’s destruction, she feels like having somewhere to call home is precious to her. She can’t let him take it. She can’t let him _want_ to. “No, guess what?” 

Loki bends Clint’s arm back at an angle that doesn’t look like fun. 

“I still want you to be my friend!” she shouts back at him. She shivers. “I don’t care how many people you hurt. I’m serious. I don’t have to trust you. I don’t have to judge you. I still--” 

“Why?” Loki’s eyes are wide. “How could anyone care about me? Look at me, look on what I am! Fear me, do not love me!” 

“Well, it’s like what Jesus tells us to do and shit,” she says, stuffing her hands into the pocket of her hoodie. Is that a snowflake, falling from the empty sky? “Not that I’m religious or anything. I get that you’re trying to make everyone hate you, because I’m pretty good at that too. But guess what?” She laughs at him now. And it _is_ snowing. The only time she ever saw snow before was when she was little, when she went to her grandmother’s house in Montana (her dad’s mom; it was back when her parents were still together, back before the divorce, before he went to prison). She bounces a little on the balls of her feet with the adrenaline and the joy of it, remembering the way it felt that first time. 

“Guess what?” she asks him again. Maybe she’s a little delirious. 

“What, you pathetic fool?” His sharp appendage cuts into Clint, who bleeds and slumps down over his arm. Oh fuck, if he’s dead... 

“I don’t accept it.” She walks over to Loki, wishing once again that she could set fires with her eyes, that she could melt his ice with a look. She’ll do her best. She reaches up and pats him on the head. His Ice Giant scalp is so cold her fingers almost stick to it, and hard as stone. “You’re still my friend. I mean, if you killed Clint, we’ll have a lot to work through, but whatever.” 

“He’s alive.” Loki looks down, and slowly shifts back to his humanlike body. He looks more gaunt and bloodless than before. He looks like a fish after you gut and clean it. “I did not injure him too cruelly.” 

“Because you’re actually an all right guy.” The last few snowflakes drift down. She catches one on her tongue. 

“Is it so? You look upon a murderer, and the one-day king of all the realms, and you say, all right? Who are you to say that?” 

“I already told you what I am, I’m nothing. Who are _you_ , Loki?” Darcy kneels beside Clint. She takes off her sweatshirt and uses it to staunch his bleeding a little bit. “Are you just a weirdo who stabs people in the middle of the night? Is that the person you’re going to be?” 

“I do not know what I am.” 

“Apparently not. But I think I do. I think I’m looking at him.” 

And that’s when the Milky Way rips open, because Darcy clearly didn’t have enough excitement for one night already. 

What can she do? She passes out. 

\--- 

When Darcy comes to, she isn’t sure if she is still dreaming. She is definitely not in Puente Antiguo anymore. 

She’s on some kind of crazy stretcher thing and Clint is next to her, and the stretcher is being carried by a couple of stocky, badass looking Viking chicks in full armor. 

Aw fuck, she thinks, I just traveled through an Einstein-Rosen Bridge and I was unconscious for the whole thing. And then she looks around, and what she sees makes wormhole travel seem like nothing by comparison. 

All around them are impossibly high mountains with their foothills impossibly far down below, and clouds swirling beneath the bridges they’re treading, and a dazzling sky full of rainbows and stars, and the air even _smells_ different here. It’s neither the smog-glutted mire of Los Angeles nor the dust and exhaust fumes of Puente Antiguo. It’s something else, something crisp and clean and lush. 

She nudges Clint in the side. He groans and rolls around a little bit. Oh well. His loss. 

\--- 

They cross one last magnificent gleaming bridge and enter into the castle of Odin. It is extravagant, with columns and wide halls all made of marble that sparkles. Torches burn in braziers to light the rooms, creating a constant gentle breeze that smells of fire. Every once in a while, the walls open up to show the city streets and the huge mountains behind. Darcy catches her breath each time. 

The weird thing is she kind wishes her mom could see this. Darcy and her mom don’t even get along that well these days, but probably a lot that is because Darcy’s mom kind of hates her life, and she thinks being able to see something like this would make her remember how awesome the universe is. 

“Excuse me,” Darcy asks one of the Viking ladies. “I think I’m okay to walk. Can I walk?” 

“Certainly,” one of them says, and they lower the stretcher thing enough that Darcy can stand up and step off, feeling like royalty, stars blinking in front of her eyes until she rubs them. The carpets in the halls are thick and soft underneath her feet, and her Converse leave little indentations behind her. 

They are greeted by the king and queen, who look like characters from a storybook. With them are Thor and-- 

“Jane!” Darcy waves to her friend. Jane waves back, but does not smile. Oh, right, she probably should have told Jane about the whole Loki being back in New Mexico thing. Oh well. 

Some of Thor’s friends who were in New Mexico when Loki made his first appearance are there too, including the guy with the amazing beard. Darcy waves to them too. They all look happy to see her. 

Clint is spirited away to whatever kind of Viking hospital the Asgardians have, and then they have a feast. Well, it’s just a dinner with the various people who are assembled in the throne room, but it feels like a feast to Darcy. Darcy eats ham and dumplings and sausages and stew until she feels like her stomach is going to burst, and then they bring out pancakes and sweet rolls and fresh fruit and well, she just can’t help herself. She doesn’t really talk to anyone; no one is really talking to her, and that’s fine. 

\--- 

At the end of the dinner, Odin escorts Darcy away from the table. She feels her face flush to be in the presence of such an incredible magnitude of power. Yeah, this guy only rules an _entire planet_. And here she is in a Mr. Clean T-shirt and jeans and Converse that are full of holes. Of course, maybe full Viking armor is the Asgardian equivalent of jeans and a T-shirt. 

“It pains me that I nearly let you and your friend perish at my son’s hands,” Odin tells her, as they head off into a quiet wing of the palace. “I should have been vigilant.” 

“It’s okay,” she says quietly. “Parents shouldn’t have to look after their children all the time.” She thinks about her grandmother in Montana again for a moment. 

“He is still a young man with much to learn,” Odin tells Darcy. His eyes are sad. “I will not make the mistake I made the first time when I send him to finish his penance. He will be neither Asgardian nor Jotunn. He will simply be Loki.” 

“Where will you send him?” Darcy asks. 

“Perhaps to Jotunheim. If he is ever to sit as their king, he must learn to embrace their ways too.” Then he shakes his head. “But he is not ready. Even without his inhuman strength, his prejudices will rule him. He may lash out. He may harm the truce between our kingdoms once again. So for now he will serve out his sentence here with us in Asgard.” 

Darcy wrings her hands. “Well, if you ever do decide he’s ready to go back to uh, Midgard...there’s a house called the Rookery in New Mexico where there’s always a spare bed or two for anyone who needs a place to come home to.” 

And Odin All-Father, King of the Asgardians smiles. 

\--- 

The end of their walk around the palace is the hospital room where Clint is staying. Odin lets her go in alone to have some privacy with her friend. Darcy giggles to find Clint already doing pushups, shirtless with bandages wound around his waist. She lets her eyes linger for a few seconds longer than is strictly professional. Hey. Dude’s ripped. 

“Agent Barton?” she asks him. “How are you holding up?” 

“Oh, Darcy.” He stands, smooths down his bandages, suddenly looking awkward. 

“Sorry, I should have asked if you were decent. I can turn around.” 

“It’s fine,” he says, waving her off. But he still slips on a light linen tunic that Darcy supposes is the equivalent of a hospital gown in Asgard. He’s looking at her differently, now, she notices. He’s looking at her with respect. “Thank you for saving me,” he says, gravely serious. It makes her want to poke him and make him laugh. 

“Nah,” she says, “It was Loki that decided to spare you. That’s the way he is. He’s trying to be an evil bastard but he’s not very good at it.” 

“Well, it’s like I said,” Clint says with a shrug. “You’ve got a good read on people. You know, if you ever decide to switch careers, you’d make a good agent. Maybe you can chat with Natasha some time.” Darcy thinks about sharing a cup of coffee with someone as effortlessly cool and gorgeous as the Black Widow and now she’s blushing again. 

“You’re too sweet,” she mumbles and looks at her feet. 

“Not really. I’ve kind of been an asshole,” he admits. Darcy shrugs and meets his eyes again. 

“Doesn’t bother me.” 

Now Clint gives her a big goofy grin. “I’ve noticed.” 


End file.
